The following are Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s remarks as delivered today at the 46th Annual West Indian-American Day Parade:

“Good morning. Sadly, this weekend saw a number of shootings in this area. It actually was a reduction in the number of shootings we typically see over this weekend and thank God, most of the victims of the shots survived.

“But tragically, as you read, a one-year-old, Antiq Hennis, lost his young life. He was shot and killed only a few blocks from here last night.

“That is a tragedy for his parents and family, for the entire community and for this entire city.

“Every child in this city is precious, and every child deserves our protection. And when a child dies, we all suffer and we all grieve. Today, we are all grieving.

“Murders are at an all-time low in this city, but we know that is cold comfort to any grieving parent or friends.

“Commissioner Kelly will fill you in on the details of the investigation in a couple of moments.

“We are still gathering all the facts on these incidents, but if past is any prologue, you can bet that the guns the perpetrators used were illegally possessed and originally purchased in a different state.

“The constant flow of illegal guns into our city and into the hands of criminals happens for one reason and one reason alone: it’s caused by broken federal gun laws that Washington refuses to fix and broken gun laws in many states, which allow weapons to easily pass into the hands of criminals.

“When background checks aren’t conducted on gun sales, weapons flow to the illegal market and into the hands of people like last night’s shooters.

“It happens over and over and over again.

“It is nothing short of insanity, and it’s why we are going to continue to press lawmakers in Washington and lawmakers in every state with weak laws to wake up, show some courage and pass common-sense laws to protect the public.

“In the meantime, illegal weapons are going to continue to land on our streets.

“And as long as that’s happening, we are going to have to continue to have our police officers use the pro-active policing tactics that have cut murders and shootings to all-time lows in this city.

“Unfortunately, during the last month, we’ve seen two actions that will make it more difficult for our police officers to continue to reduce the number of tragedies like the one we saw last night.

“A misguided ruling from a Federal judge and two bills passed by the City Council will make it harder for the NYPD to continue to reduce shootings and violent crimes, which primarily occur in minority communities, as we saw once again last night.

“So the ideologues on the far right will continue to tell us our gun laws don’t need to be fixed.

“And the ideologues on the left will continue to tell us we need to handcuff the police officers who have been unfathomably successful in reducing violent crime.

“For 20 years in this city, crime has come down. God help us if we stop doing what we have been doing.

“It is due to weak gun laws that the guns have come here – and permissive policing would turn around all the progress that we’ve made.

“There’s not a lot else to say: another child dead senselessly. Somebody with a gun – you just can’t understand what goes through people’s minds.

“We just have to stop this carnage and we have to keep doing what we’ve been doing. You have our commitment that we’ll do everything.

“The one thing we can’t do is we can’t bring back this child. But we as a society have a responsibility to make sure, if we possibly can, no other parent has to go through what the parents of this young child are going through today.

“A young life, who knows what this child might have been when he grow up, if he had grown up. Unfortunately, he does not have the opportunity to do that. Thank you very much.”

The following are Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly’s remarks as delivered today at the 46th Annual West Indian-American Day Parade:

“Let me give you the details of what happened last evening.

“At about 7:15 PM, Anthony Hennis – a male 21-years of age – goes to visit the mother of his child, Cherise Miller, who lives on Rockaway Avenue. The child – Antiq Hennis – is 16-months of age.

“The purpose of the visit was to pick-up the child and to take the child to visit Hennis’ grandmother. He puts him in the stroller, and when they get to the intersection of Livonia Avenue and Bristol Street on the northwest corner, four shots are fired.

“Anthony Hennis is not hit; Antiq Hennis is hit once on the left side of his head. The bullet exits his head, and he’s taken by ambulance to Brookdale hospital.

“Four .45 caliber shell casings are found on the corner. One fired bullet was found at 360 Bristol Street. The stroller had four bullet holes in it. It appears to be two entrance and two exit holes.